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"Why do we repeat the same mistakes?" asks William Greider in his new book "Come Home, America?" The Korean War, Vietnam, and Iraq wars were all based on mistaken premises, wrong information, and manipulation of facts by one administration after another. So is it the arrogance of a military superpower and a "winner's complex" in the executive branch and the Pentagon? Or is it ignorance on the part of our representatives in Congress who can't be bothered to know the history of hatred of China by the Vietnamese or the difference between Sunni and Shia in the Muslim world? " Or is it both?" Greider asks.
Whether it is foolish and hideous wars or a foolish and hideous health care system, American has come to resemble some place I don't recognize from marching in the Palos Heights Pet Parade back in the 1950s. I knew something was wrong in the 1960s, but I thought we kind of worked our way out of that mess with the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the end to the Vietnam War. But like a python eating its prey rather than the quick death of a crocodile grabbing and crunching, our democracy has slowly been eaten and is disintegrating in the belly of the beast.
And our congress helped. To use another gross metaphor, parasitical entities like the investment bank Goldman Sachs have attached themselves to the body politic and not content to suck fees from the wealthy, they now prey on John and Jean Q. Public' s wages and social safety nets.
This is a momentous time, but we are led by timid people with little curiosity about how to build a better place. We have managers who ignorantly accept legislation written by cunning con men. These relentlessly mediocre managers just want to get something passed without a thought to the big picture. Then there are the schemers who do know what they are doing. They are not ignorant. They have the cunning of mob bosses. So instead of getting an energy bill that builds a new energy grid and promises fast trains and smart buses, we get some scheme to reward coal producers and enable Goldman Sachs to make another killing off the last vestiges of the American crony capitalist system. At least that's what Matt Taibbi is telling us in his Rolling Stone article. He calls Goldman Sachs "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."
And here's an interview with Taibbi about the Goldman reaction to the piece. Goldman has decided to just try and spin Taibbi as a crazy wing nut conspiracy theorist and that he is all but accusing them of being the fourth shooter in the Kennedy assassination. Isn't Goldman Sachs just doing what it is built to do, make gobs of money, says business reporter to Taibbi. Isn't it up to government to rein Goldman Sachs in, says the creepy business reporter. Isn't it the stupid teachers' pension funds or people who invested in petsmart.com.com that are to blame for investing in crap companies says the cold hearted business reporter? Taibbi Interview on Business News While this heist is getting underway, the great health insurance heist is being planned. Looks like Taibbi's next assignment for "Rolling Stone" will be health care. Just in the nick of time! The former "Rolling Stone" reporter and editor William Greider must be pleased that there is somebody to follow in his footsteps of real reporting. Greider and Taibbi share a common attribute that most main stream reporters and certainly our congress lack. That's curiosity. Curiosity does not kill the feral cat.   |
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Kevin Baker in his Harper's article "Barack Hoover Obama" called Senators Baucus, Nelson, Conrad, "aged satraps from *vast windy places". John Adams, reporter for the Great Falls Tribune, ropes an interview with one of them, Senator Max Baucus, and asks him why Single Payer is not on the table and what about all those insurance, pharma and medical services contributions.
The first part of the interview has Senator Baucus at one point accusing Adams of being "confrontational". Something about the reporter's "tone". You listen and decide. I find it strange and disturbing that reporters are chided for asking what basically ... |
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GE's Immelt thinks we goofed. We need to make things again. GE's Immelt says U.S. economy needs industrial renewal
In our 2nd hour at 3PM Mountain Time we will interview Gwen Lachelt. We ask her "What the frack is fracking?"
Gwen Lachelt has called Durango home for 28 years. She is the director and co-founder of EARTHWORKS’ Oil & Gas Accountability Project (OGAP). She is a native New Mexican and was raised in Alaska and Colorado. Gwen has worked on oil and gas issues since 1988 when Amoco, now BP America, announced plans to drill a thousand natural gas wells in her community.
Lachelt’s work to prevent and reduce the impacts caused by oil and gas development spans the globe. She has dedicated her career to protecting landowner rights, air and water quality threatened by energy development. Her work has resulted in numerous policy reforms and new laws at the federal, state and local level across the United States.
Live streaming at kmmsam.com at 2PM Mountain Time.
More to come.
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How’s that for a “frame”? I'm picking on the Democrats because they are in charge now, but all politicians are looking pretty limp these days. When the American public hears words like “it’s not politically possible” or “this isn’t Canada “ or “we don’t have the votes” or the vomit inducing “the perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of the good” (what happened to “better”?), they slowly but surely are viewing elected officials in Washington as impotent. This is at the same time more and more of them are having affairs. Maybe there’s a connection?
In William Greider’s new book and repair ... |
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<blockquote>Imagine a meat company that bred ten billion rats, fattened them on trash and sewage, ground their bodies into chuck, and then sold it all as grade-A ground beef to McDonald's and Burger King, right under the noses of the USDA: this is exactly the same thing, only with debt instead of food. We're eating it, they're counting the money.</blockquote>
Taibbi points out that Goldman's was smart enough not to eat their own rat burgers, but Lehman's and Bear Stearns weren't so smart. Read this prequel to an upcoming article in "Rolling Stone" by Taibbi.
Suck on Our Yachts
Yes, indeed, the Rat fatteners are still in charge and we should be very worried. These guys should be in jail. This was a heist, pure and simple.
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Our radio show today has on the brilliant Glen Ford of
blackagendareport.com at 2PM Mountain Time. Glen has two terrific pieces on health care reform which connects the dots between the White House and The Senate. Back in February of 2008, Glen told us that we were in the "mother of all bubbles", so if we have time, we want to talk to him about health care, but also the black hole we have entered and if these so called financial reforms will do any good.
At 3PM Mountain Time we
have former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman, another favorite of ours. Melvin wrote a great book on the CIA called "Failure of Intelligence". We've ask Mel on again to help us make sense out of what is happening in Iran.
At
4PM we have the head of the organization "Green Coalition of Gay
Loggers for Jesus", Brian Leyland, on to explain why his organization has applied for a parade permit to march with
the tea party group that has a permit for July 4 in Bozeman, MT.
Interesting place, Montana.
Speaking of Bozeman, Montana was yet again embarrassed by some goofball in city government asking for people's Facebook password on their job application. It made the news in Great Britain. Bozeman wants your Facebook password
You can live stream us at Democracy's Edge Talk Radio
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Listener Benny of Benny's World blog sent me a link to Bill Maher's righteous riff last night and kindly said it reminded her of me.
Maher's rant on the feckless Democrats and the crazy Republicans is dead on. I dug up a piece that I wrote back in July of 2005. Once I started paying attention again to politics after the coup of 2000 and my entry into party politics with the 2004 campaign of John Edwards, it became clear to me that the Eisenhower/Rockefeller Republicans were steadily taking over the party of labor.
The ... |
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“…stepping forward to tell us what is off the table. Every week, there is another Max Baucus of Montana, another Kent Conrad of North Dakota, another Ben Nelson of Nebraska, huffing and puffing and harrumphing that we had better forget about single-payer health care, a carbon tax, nationalizing the banks, funding for mass transit, closing tax loopholes for the rich.”
So the writer, Kevin Baker in his new Harper’s essay “Barack Hoover Obama”, writes with exasperation of the sad, brutish, and dangerous state of our current affairs. Instead of all kinds of liberal ideas that have been relegated to the back ... |
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Article 31: "Every citizen has the right to health care. The
state takes care of public health and provide the means of prevention
and treatment by building different types of hospitals and medical
institutions."
That's Article 31 of the Iraq Constitution. The state builds hospitals and medical institutions. Hmmmm? Who is paying for the Iraqis to have universal single payer health care?
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Go directly to Reinventing Democracy
Read it on line. Nancy Bordier enters my growing list of "Uppity Women Fighting Morons."
Redirect your energy horizontally and not at the enemies of democracy also known as no 'nads Democrats and nasty ''nads Republicrats.
Join Montanans for Single Payer in Butte on July 4. Take this fight to the enemy.
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